


Long Road Home

by SailorSol



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Torchwood
Genre: Bittersweet, Crossover, Gen, Homesickness, Spare Oom, odd friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-14
Updated: 2010-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSol/pseuds/SailorSol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack runs into another lonely traveler looking for her way home during his time waiting for the Doctor. Short and fluffyish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Road Home

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this... oh, maybe two years ago now. Or at least, I started it then, and finished it some time later. I just thought it would be fun to see Susan and Jack interacting, and her seeing right through his act. Takes place sometime around the late '60s, probably.

She reminded him of the Doctor. He wasn't entirely sure why, except maybe she had that same sense of _knowing_ the Time Lord had. But as far as Jack and his wrist strap could tell, she was nothing more than human. There was _something_ off in his reading, but he couldn't figure out what, not without any more technology than what he had and would be invented for another twenty years.

He hesitated in approaching her, and Lucia gave him a sideways look. He shook his head slightly, and her look turned dark at being told to stay back. The woman looked to be older than Lucia by ten or fifteen years, but despite being middle-aged, she was very pretty, her dark hair pulled back and the dark skirt and blazer flattering.

"Do you plan on questioning me?" she asked, her tone somewhere between amused and imperious. Her stance was casual, but Jack could see the tense lines and shuttered eyes. Jack forced his brightest smile onto his face, motioning the team back. The woman seemed amused when they hesitated to obey him.

"My name's Captain Jack Harkness. And you are?" The smile she gave him in return left him almost breathless, and he was stunned that anyone could have quite an effect on him.

"Pevensie," she replied, tone crisp. "Susan Pevensie. And I know who you are, Mr. Harkness. You're Torchwood." Jack did his best to hide his surprise.

"What would make you think that, Susan?"

"You may call me Ms. Pevensie. And you're quite obvious, you lot, always coming round when strange things start happening."

"You're very observant, _Ms. Pevensie_. I take it there's no Mr. Pevensie, then?" He allowed himself to leer just a little; she really was quite beautiful.

"Frankly, Mr. Harkness, I don't see how that's any of your business. But no, there hasn't been any Mr. Pevensies since my father and brothers passed away. Do you plan on actually questioning me, or are you going to continue with your fumbling attempts at flirting with me?" she asked him. She didn't seem ruffled at all by the entire situation, and certainly wasn't falling prey to his charming good looks. He allowed his smile to tone down.

"You don't seem surprised by any of this, Ms. Pevensie. I would think seeing a man tear his skin off and turn into a raging monster would leave you a bit more flustered," Jack said, getting down to business.

"You assume that I have never encountered the extraordinary, Mr. Harkness." Her answer was so simple and clearly a statement of fact that it caught him off guard once again.

"Have you ever met a man named the Doctor?" he asked before he could stop himself. There had been _some_ accumulation of artron radiation around this woman, but it hadn't been enough to indicate prolonged exposure to the Time Vortex.

"The Doctor? No, I can't say that I have. Just because I don't work for your Torchwood, or for UNIT, or any of those other organizations, does not mean that I am a naive little girl where monsters are concerned," she said, and there was that hint of something in her voice again.

"I would hardly say you're a naive little girl, but you certainly don't seem the type to be tangling with this sort of thing. A beautiful woman like you should be off being enchanted by dashing young men all fighting to win your favor," he said, putting the charm on once more. It made her laugh, and Jack felt like he was missing some sort of joke.

"That gets rather tiresome. And I've found the quality of poetry decreases as it increases in frequency," she replied.

"No poetry, right. I'll keep that in mind. How about a drink, instead? My treat." She looked at him, evaluating him, and once again he was reminded of the Doctor in the way that she seemed to see more of him than he intended or wanted.

"You wish to have your team clean this up while you're off trying to sweep me off my feet," she finally said, no hint of question in her voice.

"I'm impressed, but they're not my team. The lovely young woman giving me the evil eye is the team leader. I'm just following orders," Jack said, throwing a wink towards Lucia. He received an eye roll in return as she started telling the others what to do.

"One drink," Susan finally agreed to. Jack beamed, and held out his arm for her. She raised an eyebrow, but took it, not fumbling for a moment with the somewhat old-fashioned gesture. "So you _can_ be a gentleman. How refreshing."

He led her away from the park and towards a local cafe, pulling out the chair for her as she took her seat across from him. He took one moment to look at the menu, and while she contemplated her own order, he took another good look at her. Discreetly, he ran another scan, coming up with the same results.

"There's something about you that isn't quite right," he said, watching as she took a sip of water.

"That's certainly flattering, Mr. Harkness. You shan't win any points over my other suitors if you don't treat me with the respect I deserve," she said, tone crisp but eyes laughing.

"Who are you really? Is Susan Pevensie even your real name?" She looked away from him, off into some sort of distance, and the Time Lord came to mind again.

"In this life, yes, Susan Pevensie is my real name," she finally answered.

"In this life?" He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with where this conversation was leading and what it could possibly mean.

"Once upon a time, I was Queen Susan the Gentle. A children's game, really, played to keep off the demons of war. My brothers and sister and I were sent to the country during the Blitz," she said, looking down at her glass of water.

"It was a dark time," he said. She looked up, smiling sadly.

"Perhaps, but sometimes the light shines brighter to spite the darkness." Unbidden, the sounds of Glenn Miller assaulted him, the taste of champagne on his lips, the feeling of dancing under starlight and bomb blasts and the glow of the clock face of Big Ben with a beautiful girl.

"You said your father and brothers died. May I ask how?" He knew it was rude and intrusive, but this woman was compelling.

"A train accident, just after the war ended. I lost everything that day," she said, voice soft. "My entire family--mother, father, brothers, sister, cousin, and three very dear family friends...."

"I'm sorry. I know how terrible it is..." he stopped himself, knowing that there weren't really any words for that feeling of loss. He forced himself to change the subject. "How did you know who I was?"

"I am the secretary for the Minister of Defense. The matter of Torchwood has come up on several occasions," she replied. Jack was thankful he had not already slipped a Retcon pill into the drinks that had just arrived.

"And what were you doing in the park in the middle of the workday, in _Cardiff_?"

"Some people take holidays, Mr. Harkness."

"People take holidays to Nice or Rome, not Cardiff."

"Cardiff is an interesting city with lots of history. I'm particularly interested in history." The way she said this, a half-smile on her lips, made Jack wonder if she knew the truth about him.

"You are an intriguing woman, Susan Pevensie. You certainly know more than you're letting on," Jack said, leaning back in his chair. "And you're certainly smart enough to be something other than a secretary."

"And what would you have me do, Mr. Harkness? Britain already has a queen," she answered, and she said it so seriously that Jack felt she wasn't making a joke. He felt the metaphorical light bulb turn on as understanding slid into place.

"You've traveled through the Rift. How is that even possible?" He took another reading of her with his vortex manipulator, looking closer at the numbers. "Years ago. The energy is faded."

"Perhaps it was your Rift that I traveled through, though it took on the rather interesting personification of an old wardrobe in a spare room." He felt his heart leap as he thought of a blue police box.

"A TARDIS?" he half-whispered, shifting forward to the edge of his seat like an eager child. Her face showed only confusion, and he felt disappointment crash around him. "Never mind."

"It was just a wardrobe that belonged to the old professor who took us in during the Blitz. It was, if only for a brief time, magical."

"There's no such thing as magic," he felt himself answering disdainfully. The woman's eyes darkened.

"Of course there is. I have seen it for myself. I'm not crazy, Mr. Harkness. I may have spent far too many years pretending it was nothing more than a children's game, but I know what was true, and I know that magic exists," she replied, and he could only describe her tone as being _imperial_. She looked like she was sitting upon a throne instead of a cast iron chair outside of a dingy cafe in Cardiff.

"A hundred years ago, people would have called an electric light bulb magic. It's just a matter of not understanding the technology behind the phenomena," Jack replied, daring to defy her.

"And a thousand years from now, someone may stumble across a chess piece and wonder at its curiosity, Mr. Harkness. The world is constantly changing, as I am sure you are aware, and technology comes and goes. But the old magic, the Deep Magic, remains." He could hear the way she capitalized the words, the slight emphasis and wonder in her voice.

"What are you really doing here in Cardiff?" She gave him a long look.

"The same thing you are, Mr. Harkness. Waiting, and searching for a way home," she replied. "Though I think I am closer to finding answers than you are."

"London is a train ride away," he said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He'd been waiting for so long, and to have this woman who he didn't even know rub his face in that fact stung.

"Finchley is merely where I live," she replied with a laugh. "I had thought perhaps your Rift might take me home, but no. It would take me many places, but none of them would be Narnia."

She said the word _Narnia_ the same way he spoke of the TARDIS. "I'm sorry," he told her, and he could tell she knew it wasn't just a nicety. She smiled at him, sad but genuine.

"We will all find our way home eventually, Mr. Harkness. And sometimes I think the path we take, no matter how lonely, makes the destination all the more worth it in the end," she said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I should be returning to London."

Jack stood as she did. "I hope you find what you're looking for soon," he told her. It earned him another smile, and he thought of Rose again, how each one was a precious gem to be treasured, no matter how freely given they might have been.

"Thank you for the drink, Mr. Harkness. Perhaps we shall meet again."

And with that, she was gone, leaving Jack feeling more content than he had in years. He could only hope they might meet again, some day.


End file.
